Adoptionism

Adoptionism, in a
broad sense, a christological theory according to which Christ, as
man, is the adoptive Son of God; the precise import of the word
varies with the successive stages and exponents of the theory.
Roughly, we have (1) the adoptionism of Elipandus and Felix in the
eighth century; (2) the Neo-Adoptionism of Abelard in the twelfth
century; (3) the qualified Adoptionism of some theologians from the
fourteenth century on.

(1) Adoptionism
of Elipandus and Felix in the Eighth Century

This,
the original form of Adoptionism, asserts a double sonship in
Christ: one by generation and nature, and the other by adoption and
grace. Christ as God is indeed the Son of God by generation and
nature, but Christ as man is Son of God only by adoption and grace.
Hence "The Man Christ" is the adoptive and not the natural
Son of God. Such is the theory held towards the end of the eighth
century by Elipandus, Archbishop of Toledo, then under the
Mohammedan rule, and by Felix, Bishop of Urgel, then under the
Frankish dominion. The origin of this Hispanicus error, as it was
called, is obscure. Nestorianism had been a decidedly Eastern heresy
and we are surprised to find an offshoot of it in the most western
part of the Western Church, and this so long after the parent heresy
had found a grave in its native land. It is, however, noteworthy
that Adoptionism began in that part of Spain where Islamism
dominated, and where a Nestorian colony had for years found refuge.
The combined influence of Islamism and Nestorianism had, no doubt,
blunted the aged Elipandus's Catholic sense. Then came a certain
Migetius, preaching a loose doctrine, and holding, among other
errors, that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity did not exist
before the Incarnation. The better to confute this error, Elipandus
drew a hard and fast line between Jesus as God and Jesus as Man, the
former being the natural, and the latter merely the adoptive Son of
God. The reassertion of Nestorianism raised a storm of protest from
Catholics, headed by Beatus, Abbot of Libana, and Etherius, Bishop
of Osma. It was to maintain his position that Elipandus deftly
enlisted the co-operation of Felix of Urgel, known for his learning
and versatile mind. Felix entered the contest thoughtlessly. Once in
the heat of it, he proved a strong ally for Elipandus, and even
became the leader of the new movement called by contemporaries the
Haeresis Feliciana. While Elipandus put an indomitable will at the
service of Adoptionism, Felix gave it the support of his science and
also Punic faith. From Scripture he quoted innumerable texts. In the
patristic literature and Mozarabic Liturgy he found such expressions
as adoptio, homo adoptivus, ouios thetos, supposedly applied to the
Incarnation and Jesus Christ. Nor did he neglect the aid of
dialectics, remarking with subtilty that the epithet "Natural
Son of God" could not be predicated of "The Man Jesus",
who was begotten by temporal generation; who was inferior to the
Father; who was related not to the Father especially, but to the
whole Trinity, the relation in questions remaining unaltered if the
Father or the Holy Ghost had been incarnate instead of the Son.
Elipandus's obstinacy and Felix's versatility were but the partial
cause of the temporary success of Adoptionism. If that offspring of
Nestorianism held sway in Spain for wellnigh two decades and even
made an inroad into southern France, the true cause is to be found
in Islamitic rule, which practically brought to naught the control
of Rome over the greater part of Spain; and in the over-conciliatory
attitude of Charlemagne, who, in spite of his whole-souled loyalty
to the Roman Faith, could ill afford to alienate politically
provinces so dearly bought. Of the two heresiarchs, Elipandus died
in his error. Felix, after many insincere recantations, was placed
under the surveillance of Leidrad of Lyons and gave all the signs of
a genuine conversion. His death would even have passed for a
repentant's death if Agobar, Leidrad's successor, had not found
among his papers a definite retraction of all former retractions.
Adoptionism did not long outlive its authors. What Charlemagne could
not do by diplomacy and synods (Narbonne, 788; Ratisbon, 792;
Frankfort, 794; Aix-la-Chapelle, 799) he accomplished by enlisting
the services of missionaries like St. Benedict of Aniane, who
reported as early as 800 the conversion of 20,000 clerics and
laymen; and savants like Alcuin, whose treatises "Adv.
Elipandum Toletanum" and "Contra Felicem Urgellensem"
will ever be a credit to Christian learning.

The
official condemnation of Adoptionism is to be found (1) in Pope
Hadrian's two letters, one to the bishops of Spain, 785, and the
other to Charlemagne, 794; (2) in the decrees of the Council of
Frankfort (794), summoned by Charlemagne, it is true, but "in
full apostolic power" and presided over by the legate of Rome,
therefore a synodus universalis, according to an expression of
contemporary chroniclers. In these documents the natural divine
filiation of Jesus even as man is strongly asserted, and His
adoptive filiation, at least in so far as it excludes the natural,
is rejected as heretical. Some writers, mainly Protestant, have
tried to erase from Adoptionism all stain of the Nestorian heresy.
These writers do not seem to have caught the meaning of the Church's
definition. Since sonship is an attribute of the person and not of
the nature, to posit two sons is to posit two persons in Christ, the
very error of Nestorianism. Alcuin exactly renders the mind of the
Church when he says, "As the Nestorian impiety divided Christ
into two persons because of the two natures, so your unlearned
temerity divided Him into two sons, one natural and one adoptive"
(Contra Felicem, I, P. L. CI, Col. 136). With regard to the
arguments adduced by Felix in support of his theory, it may be
briefly remarked that (1) such scriptural texts as John, xiv, 28,
had already been explained at the time of the Arian controversy, and
such others as Rom., viii, 29, refer to our adoption, not to that of
Jesus, Christ is nowhere in the Bible called the adopted Son of God;
nay more, Holy Scripture attributes to "The Man Christ"
all the predicates which belong to the Eternal Son (cf. John, i, 18;
iii, 16; Rom., viii, 32). (2) The expression adoptare, adoptio, used
by some Fathers, has for its object the sacred Humanity, not the
person of Christ; the human nature, not Christ, is said to be
adopted or assumed by the Word. The concrete expression of the
Mozarabic Missal, Homo adoptatus, or of some Greek Fathers, ouios
thetos, either does not apply to Christ or is an instance of the not
infrequent use in early days of the concrete for the abstract. (3)
The dialectical arguments of Felix cease to have a meaning the
moment it is clearly understood that, as St. Thomas says, "Filiation
properly belongs to the person". Christ, Son of God, by His
eternal generation, remains Son of God, even after the Word has
assumed and substantially united to Himself the sacred Humanity;
Incarnation detracts no more from the eternal sonship than it does
from the eternal personality of the Word. (See NESTORIANISM.)

(2)
New-Adoptionism of Abelard in the Twelfth Century

The
Spanish heresy left few traces in the Middle Ages. It is doubtful
whether the christological errors of Abelard can be traced to it.
They rather seem to be the logical consequence of a wrong
construction put upon the hypostatical union. Abelard began to
question the truth of such expressions as "Christ is God";
"Christ is man". Back of what might seem a mere logomachy
there is really, in Abelard's mind, a fundamental error. He
understood the hypostatical union as a fusion of two natures, the
divine and the human. And lest that fusion become a confusion, he
made the sacred Humanity the external habit and adventitious
instrument of the Word only, and thus denied the substantial reality
of "The Man Christ" -- "Christus ut homo non est
aliquid sed dici potest alicuius modi." It is self-evident that
in such a theory the Man Christ could not be called the true Son of
God. Was He the adoptive Son of God? Personally, Abelard repudiated
all kinship with the Adoptionists, just as they deprecated the very
idea of their affiliation to the Nestorian heresy. But after
Abelard's theory spread beyond France, into Italy, Germany and even
the Orient, the disciples were less cautious than the master.
Luitolph defended at Rome the following proposition -- "Christ,
as man, is the natural son of man and the adoptive Son of God";
and Folmar, in Germany, carried this erroneous tenet to its extreme
consequences, denying to Christ as man the right to adoration.
Abelard's new-Adoptionism was condemned, at least in its fundamental
principles, by Alexander III, in a rescript dated 1177: "We
forbid under pain of anathema that anyone in the future dare assert
that Christ as man is not a substantial reality (non esse aliquid)
because as He is truly God, so He is verily man." The
refutation of this new form of Adoptionism, as it rests altogether
on the interpretation of the hypostatical union, will be found in
the treatment of that word. (See HYPOSTATIC UNION.)

(3) Qualified
Adoptionism of Later Theologians

The
formulas "natural Son of God", "adopted Son of God"
were again subjected to a close analysis by such theologians as Duns
Scotus (1300); Durandus a S. Portiano (1320); Vasquez (1604); Suarez
(1617). They all admitted the doctrine of Frankfort, and confessed
that Jesus as man was the natural and not merely the adoptive Son of
God. But besides that natural sonship resting upon the hypostatical
union, they thought there was room for a second filiation, resting
on grace, the grace of union (gratia unionis). They did not agree,
however, in qualifying that second filiation. Some called it
adoptive, because of its analogy with our supernatural adoption.
Others, fearing lest the implication of the word adoption might make
Jesus a stranger to, and alien from God, preferred to call it
natural. None of these theories runs counter to a defined dogma;
yet, since sonship is an attribute of the person, there is danger of
multiplying the persons by multiplying the filiations in Christ. A
second natural filiation is not intelligible. A second adoptive
filiation does not sufficiently eschew the connotation of adoption
as defined by the Council of Frankfort. "We call adoptive him
who is stranger to the adopter." The common mistake of these
novel theories, a mistake already made by the old Adoptionists and
by Abelard, lies in the supposition that the grace of union in
Christ, not being less fruitful than habitual grace in man, should
have a similar effect, viz., filiation. Less fruitful it is not, and
yet it cannot have the same effect in Him as in us, because to Him
it was said: "Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten Thee"
(Hebr., i, 5); and to us, "You were afar off" (Eph., ii,
13).